My friend keeps cancelling on me. Should I keep inviting her places?

One of my very good friends always cancels and/or reschedules plans with me at the last minute. I would say one out of every three times she will cancel, regardless of whether I invited her or she invited me. The last one was the worst bc she asked me to invite all of our friends for a girls night out then she cancelled the day before and asked me to reschedule. I said I could not reschedule everyone but I would organize another event when she was available. She gave me a date, I scheduled another night with everone and, guess what? She cancelled that one too!
It is getting very tiresome and even though she is a really good friend, I do not feel like making or accepting plans with her anymore. Should I dump her for good?

I wouldnt dump her as a friend completely...I'd just stop inviting her to do things, go places with you and stop accepting invites from her...IF however there are other things about her behaviour towards you etc that are fishy then I'd seriously re-evaluate the friendship then decide from there ya know...

Oh I couldn't stand that it would drive me bonkers, me being a very organized person, always there and never late I just cant stand it when people stuff you around I would give them a second chance and then no more.

As you are telling she is your very good friend so first find out why then she exhibits such strange behaviour--whether she also considers you of the same value as you consider her.A person who cannot keep words times and again and fails to meet the commitment not only has weakness of character but also a disgrace in the name of friendship--because she does not value your sentiments and does not respect your decisions.So my personal advice will be to don"t give her so much importance as she doesnot deserve your friendship.

I have had frienda cancel from time to time , but if I had a friend that canceled all the time i dont think i would keep asking her. I think i would tell her hey when you have time call me up and we can make arrangements.

Yes, I have done that. Unfortunately, after she calls to make those arrangements she will sometimes cancel those plans. She has never actually stood me up before. Just cancelled the day before or the day of.

I have been in that situation before. I'm thinking she isn't as good as a friend as she thinks she might be. Friends don't do that. I understand unexpected circumstances, but at some point, priorities come into play. I recommend not inviting her anywhere at all, until she invites you to do something twice, and both times she actually shows up. She might start to get the message if something like that is done. You just can't yank around your friends. Yes, her time is valuable, but so is yours!

I used to have a friend like this and it drove me nuts. She used to cancel on me all the time and usually at the last minute but when we did actually get together we always had a great time. So I wanted to keep her as a friend as we got along great but I finally had to have a talk with her. I told her that it really annoyed me that she would cancel at the last minute and that I would appreciate it if she would give me more notice and not a lame excuse like being too tired. Sometimes we compromised and just stayed home and rented movies, sometimes something major came up and one of us would have to cancel, but having the conversation with her seemed to help and she stopped cancelling so often after she realized how hurtful it was.
After a while I just started thinking of alternate plans in my head so that if she cancelled it didn't ruin my day. When it was a group thing and she cancelled we just went without her and we missed her but it was her loss.

Hi Buggheart. It gets really tiring stressing out and making up alternate plans "just in case". I should probably do what you did and have a talk with her before I think about inviting her anywhere again.

Well I was thinking more like just thinking to yourself "hey if she blows me off again I'm going to go see a movie instead" or just thinking about alternate things to do instead of staying home and letting her ruin plans.
I hope that if you talk to her about it that she will understand how annoying and hurtful it is. Good luck! :)

if you still want to be friends with her, then schedule your events and call here when it is happening already. i am sure she will come, if she does intend to come in the first place.
i do think however, that you are just a "backup friend" for her. if she has nothing to do she will show up. her other friends or activities gets priority.

Hi sandwedge. I am going to be more careful about where i invite her from now on. Maybe your advice to only call spur of the moment would work! I hope I am not a back up friend. She doesn't have that many friends so that would really suck! She works too long of hours and she spends so much time volunteering, I think she is just overly ampbitious when she makes plans.

hi,
as you said she is your good friend, so this is not the proper way to solve things. yes i agree that you would not feel like making arrangements or plans, but just dumping her off will only leave a deep scar in your relationship forever.
what i would suggest is that at least talk to her for once about how hurt you get. since she is your good friend, you should be very straightforward to her and talk to her.maybe there are few problems going on with her which she feels shy to share with you. so if you talk to her, maybe it will come out and will solve both of your problems.
just dumping a friend is no solution. talking and sahring your feelings and concerns is the best way to maintain any relationship.

sorry to hear about this. i have a friend who keeps cancelling on me too, which makes me so mad! yet i still ask him out. i don't know why, maybe he's a good companion and i like going out with him. i also have a friend whom whenever she wants to ask me out, she'll keep bugging me about it until i agree to go out with her but whenever i wanna ask her out, she'll just laugh it off or just ignore me. what is this kind of person/friend? i don't know. as for your friend, you can still be friends with her but since you're tired of her always cancelling on you, maybe you could try not to ask her out for a while.

i do think that you should stop inviting her places.
i think that you should also talk with her and tel her that you intend to stop doing that and what is your reasons.
I do not think that you should ask her for her reasons, i really think that she should tell you them herself and should apologize for all the times that you counted on her, and did things for her, and she canceled.

I can understand your feelings.
Your words remind me of one of my best friends.
She always make me confounded because of her behaviors.
When our holidays come,I send short messages to her to discuss our holiday events in advanced.And she always agreed to our dicision racily.However,after returning home from our school,she disappear and never contact me.Oh my god,then I will call her,send her messages,well,I find her!Afterwards,she say"Let's go out for fun!"
Actually,I am so angry and sad at that moment.
She ever told me that I am one of her most important and unforgettable friends.But I only want to be her friends that she cared most.
Yes,she admitted that she is not active,sometimes she want to do,but be hard.She just waited.
Okay,she is my friend,isn't she?
I will forgive her.
she gave me courage,happiness.And we share our sorrows.Maybe that's enough.
Don't give up this uneasy friendship,but make friends with others as well.
to tell the truth,we need different friends to enrich our life.
That's my opinion.

Well,I think you can deal with your problem.
For me,if a friend of me always cancel our dating at the last minute,to be honest,I do feel disappointed but I don't mind because she has her own life and if she cancel our dating,there must something more important than the dating.It's okay.Of course she should cancel our original plan.
I don't want to lose any friends in my friends' list.So next time I will invite her again but if she cancel it,I can do something else.

I have that sort of friends. They're there to be your friend but they can't even organize herself.
What I did with that friend. I talked to her heart to heart. I told her that time has changed and we are not kids anymore, we're no longer in high school and in college, we're older. We have important things to do, and our lives don't depend son her. People are giving effort to be present when she requests it for friendship's sake and if she does that all the time, then sooner or later, no one would attend these stuff anymore.
Actually, after the said thought. She really behaved. She's somewhat ashamed of what she did, and now she does call up and makes sure she's there. She know me and have come to know that I'm time conscious, so she really does her best to attend. Plus whenever she'd need to cancel, she calls me a few days before and personally calls all the others as well.
I think your friend hasn't outgrown the fact that you and your other friends can't keep on waiting for her. You need to let her know that. She won't change if no one would tell her straight. It's for her own good. Because this type of attitude would lead her no where in the real world. She needs to stop.
If the friendship dwindles after the talk, then so be it. You are not her ladies-in-waiting. And waiting is the worst part of it all. Don't let anyone be a master of you, regardless of who she/he is.
Good luck to you. Don't dump her instantly, talk to her then see if it changes. If not, stop showing up or talking to her for a while to make her realize.
Good luck.
Have a great time at myLot.

I would not invite her to places if she can not keep the date. She should not tell you a date if she can not make it. Something is not right there and I would not trust her to actually show up for something that was scheduled. I would tell her or ask her why she keeps cancelling on you like that.

I would stay friends with her but make it strictly a phone, internet and home friendship. Don't go anywhere with her unless it is her house or your house. For instance, if you have plans to just stay home for the night then invite her over. Or if you know that she is going to be home then call her last minute to come over and hang out. Anything that is full proof or won't screw up your plans is best. Or in the case of the girls night out thing- you already had other friends invited so go and have fun without her. Her loss if she cancels on you.
Have you tried confronting her about her repeated issue? Maybe she doesn't realize she is doing it so much or that it bothers you when she does it. Don't dump her if you don't want to- it can always work if you want it to!! Good luck!

Thanks AxranaRose. I haven't really confronted her directly about it. I have alluded to it and made jokes, like when she calls me the day of I answer the phone with "You better not be calling to cancel!" that sort of thing. I am not very good with confrontations! Thanks for wishing me luck!

That would drive me nuts. Is there a reason she keeps canceling? Is she really busy with work, or does she just not feel like it at the last minute? The reason I ask is because in a book I am reading, that sounds like one of the signs of depression.
At any rate, she's probably just not very organized, but also not really appreciating/respecting you and her other friends. I'd stop asking her to do things, or asking her to do things in groups so that if she doesn't show up, you can still go and have a good time.

A sign of depression? I never thought of that. She always calls to make plans or to ask me to make plans for a group but then she cancels last minute bc she is too tired. She works hard and volunteers alot. She seems happy but she is a sensitive person...maybe I should be paying more attention for signs of depression instead of worrying about my plans being cancelled. Thanks!

It seems to me that she is not a very good ffriend if she continually cancels. Appearently this so called friend likes to keep her calandar full and this way if nothing better comes along then she has you to fall back on. It would seem that something better keeps coming along. If you really like her then keep her as a friend and maybe only make last minuate dates and not make any longrange plans with her.

maybe she has some good reasons but still maybe you should give it a little break. let her realize that you won't be inviting her anytime sooner because of her last minute attitudes. if she's really interested, after a few days or weeks for sure, she'll be the one inviting you somewhere.